Wind-farm configurations

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Predictability and standardization are generally sought by businesses, large and small. Thus it should be good news that five companies seeking to set up offshore wind-turbine farms off southern New England have agreed to a common layout for their projects: a standard east-west orientation, with each turbine a nautical mile apart. That’s mostly to try to satisfy fishermen, some of whom express the (exaggerated) fear that the wind farms would reduce their ability to maneuver.

The five companies are Vineyard Wind, Eversource Energy, Mayflower Wind, Orsted North America and Equinor Wind.

The Trump administration, in thrall to the Red State-based fossil-fuel industry, seems to be using some fishermen’s complaints as cover in trying to stop some big renewable-industry projects, which the regime, as with “green energy’’ projects in general, associates with Democrats.

An irony in all this is that the supports for turbine towers act as reefs that attract fish.

The long debate about offshore wind farms continues as signs rapidly multiply that global warming caused by burning oil, gas and coal is accelerating, along with the damage it’s doing, although most people are not yet concerned enough about the crisis to push for serious political and policy action to reverse it. Some of those actions would indeed be quite inconvenient.

So drill off New England instead

— Photo by TheConduqtor

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Fishermen opposed to proposed wind farms off the southern New England coast should send a research delegation to often stormy northwest Europe, where big offshore wind farms have co-existed with intensive fishing for years, with supports for the wind turbines acting as reefs that attract fish. Or maybe we should frack more for natural gas in Pennsylvania, blow up some more mountaintops for coal in West Virginia, or start drilling for oil and natural gas on Georges Bank to get the energy we need to keep the lights on? Those drilling platforms would take up less water than wind farms.